John Stezaker Recalls 1968 Student Occupation at Slade School of Art

John Stezaker reflects on the 1968 student occupation at the Slade School of Art, which he participated in as a first-year student to support sit-ins in Paris and Hornsey. The events introduced him to Situationist ideas like détournement, though he read Guy Debord's 'Society of the Spectacle' two years later. At the time, the Slade was implementing a new curriculum based on Ernst Gombrich's 'Art and Illusion', with contributions from William Coldstream and a nascent film department that later influenced film theory through the journal Screen. Professors included Gombrich for art history, Leopold Ettlinger on neoclassicism, Richard Gregory on visual perception psychology, and Richard Wollheim, whose aesthetics course became 'Art and Its Objects'. Students could also attend seminars by Mary Douglas on 'Purity and Danger' and lectures by Frank Kermode, which formed 'The Sense of an Ending'. The intellectual atmosphere was intense, making studio time scarce. Stuart Brisley, fresh from the Hornsey sit-in, urged an occupation with activists from other UCL departments, which was overwhelmingly voted for. The occupation led to art students being excluded from other departments like the Warburg and Courtauld, with intellectuals retreating. Afterward, a course on Cuban poster design was offered. This account is from the May 2018 issue of ArtReview.